


You Weren't Ready

by VenyWrites



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, Bucky Barnes Feels, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 04:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11547798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenyWrites/pseuds/VenyWrites
Summary: Bucky tries to spare his girlfriend’s feelings as he prepares to leave for the war. Set in the 40’s.





	1. You Weren't Ready

**Author's Note:**

> I am SO SORRY (no I'm not). Text in italics represents flashbacks. As a side note, this was the work that started my love for writing, so it's a little raw.

Your entire body was in shock, and it was getting harder to breathe. You felt tears pooling in your eyes, and when they couldn’t be held back anymore, you felt them run down your cheeks. Bucky was sitting in front of you, with his hat resting on his lap, looking apologetically back at you.

“Doll? Y/N?” He extended his hand towards yours but you pulled back before he could reach.

“Don’t… touch me. Wh-why are you doing this?” It took every bit of your strength to keep your voice from shaking.

“Look, it’s just easier for me. I don’t need to have you as a distraction while I’m at war.” His voice turned cold and distant, you felt your chest tighten. He stood up and put his hat on. “Goodbye, Y/N” He looked like he wanted to say something else but stopped himself, and with that he walked away without looking back.

You ran home, and threw yourself on the bed. You cried until exhaustion took over. When you woke up again it was about 3 in the morning. Your heart sank; his ship would be parting soon. You try to tell yourself that you shouldn’t care, to not go, but you had to see him one last time. When the clock read 5:15 am you picked up one of your mom’s old dresses, one he hadn’t seen on you yet. Maybe that’ll keep him from recognizing you. Wearing your hair up in a ponytail under a hat made you look different in the mirror. Once you felt satisfied with your appearance, you headed out.

_You sat on your vanity applying the finishing touches to your hair and makeup. The girlfriend of a Sergeant couldn’t look less than perfect on the last day of fleet week. He’s leaving tomorrow and the party promised to be memorable, so you made sure your curls were pinned in place and that you were wearing that perfect red lippie that James loved on you. You smoothed your hands over your light blue dress one more time, grabbed your coat and purse, and looked in the mirror. The look of pride on your face couldn’t be hidden. James Buchanan Barnes, your boyfriend, a Sergeant in the US Army. Your mom would be so proud of you for living such a fruitful life, God rest her soul._

The pier wasn’t very far, and when you got there, it was already full. People were saying good bye to their loved ones. Mothers waving at their sons, wives at their husbands. You kept a safe distance from the line of soldiers that was making their way into the ship. Close enough to see their faces, but far enough not to be noticed right away by them. You looked around until you found him. There he was, waving and smiling away at the people from the weather deck with the other soldiers. The golden buttons and pins on his uniform glistening in the morning light. His broad smile made your heart weep. You wanted to hold him one last time, kiss him one last time. He scanned the crowd, and his eyes landed in the area you were in. Quickly, you hid behind a couple and looked on from in between them. He looked troubled for a second, but quickly regained his composure when another soldier got his attention. You saw the ship head for the horizon, taking with it the man who broke your heart.

_You danced through the night, twirling and swinging like there was no tomorrow. James seemed to be having fun, but looked as if something was bothering him. He was holding something back._

_“Hey Sergeant, everything alright?” You asked between breaths when the song finally ended._

_“Doll, we need to talk…” Your heart dropped, Bucky looked anxious, his blue eyes filled with distress._

_“What is it?” You inquired as you sat on the chairs belonging to your table. “What’s going on?”_

_“There’s no easy way to say this, doll” Your stomach fluttered with anticipation. “It’s over sweetheart. I don’t want to keep this going”_

Months went by, and it became easier to not let thoughts of Bucky consume you. At first it took a couple of weeks for Steve to stop asking you why you never visited anymore, but he seemed to have caught on. One bright day, you heard a knock on your door. As soon as you saw the two men, you knew what was happening. You felt your knees weaken.

“Are you Ms. (Y/N) (Y/L/N)” You nodded faintly

“We regret to inform you that Sgt. Barnes was killed in action.” You felt yourself collapse against the door. The pastor tried to help you up, but you knew you didn’t have enough strength to stand, so you stayed on the floor.

You had forgotten that Bucky was practically alone. He must have put your information in for contact in case of emergencies when he first joined and forgot to change it. The soldier kept talking but you couldn’t hear him anymore. He put a box with Bucky’s name on the floor with a flag atop it. He gave a salute and walked away with the pastor trailing behind him. You wanted to scream, to trash your apartment, but you could barely move. Your chest felt heavy with pain and your mind was racing a mile a minute. You had made your peace with the fact that James might come back and not contact you at all. You expected to find him while walking down the street with some other girl by his side. Some little part of you even toyed with the idea that he might have come back and asked for your forgiveness, maybe even tried to win you all over again. What you weren’t ready for was him not ever making it back. Never seeing him again. His eyes, his smile, the way his whole body shook when he laughed. Nothing ever prepared you for his death.


	2. He Wasn't Ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is part 2 of You Weren't Ready but from Bucky's point of view, so that is a warning on its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just gonna leave this here and walk away slowly.

He loved you. That’s the one thing in his life he was absolutely sure of. He even knew that you’d be the girl he’d marry one day. But when he enlisted, he knew how painful the uncertainty of war could get. He couldn’t do that to you. When you asked him to go dancing tonight, he saw his window of opportunity. It had to be today. Bucky already put it off for too long, and he literally had no time left to break up with you.                      

He was waiting outside your door, listening to you shuffling around inside after he knocked. You opened the door, and the gust of wind made your curls bounce off your shoulders. His breath caught in his throat. You were wearing a blue dress that matched the color of the sky during midday. The skirt of the dress ended half way down your calves and you had paired it with white shoes. You looked as beautiful as the day he met you, and suddenly he didn’t want to break your heart. Your bright red lips fought against a smile, and when they parted, your melodic voice filled his heart with joy and sorrow, upon remembering the pain he was about to cause you.

“Hello, Sergeant. Care to take a girl dancing?”

“I’d love to, doll” Bucky replied                          

You laughed and linked your arm around Bucky’s squeezing lightly in excitement.

You had arrived and made your way towards one of the tables where the rest of your friends sat. As soon as Steve saw you both, he walked over and hugged you. You were one of the few people with which Steve felt comfortable. He, actually, was the one that brought you and Bucky together. The fact that you loved Steve like a little brother, and protected him against the mean girls that mocked him was what made Bucky give into his feelings towards you. Anyone who cared so deeply about Steve was worth his time. Slowly but surely, he fell in love with you.

The music resounded and you looked beautiful twirling around in your dress, but Bucky couldn’t wait any longer. As he guided you back to the table, he mustered all the strength he could and spoke the words he had been practicing for weeks. It took everything in him to sound as cold as he could, but when he saw tears starting to fall from your eyes, he felt his courage waning. He forced himself to walk away, without looking back before he could change his mind.    

“Bucky, what did you do?” Steve’s voice rang beside him.

“What I had to, Steve. I don’t want her to suffer and live in anxiety for the rest of her life.”

“So, you would rather crush her heart now and leave her in pain?”

“Better than have her live with false hope! I don’t know if I’m coming back, Steve!”

Steve looked hurt; he shook his head and walked away from Bucky. All of a sudden, the party didn’t feel as lively as before. Bucky grabbed his coat and headed to the barracks. His bags were already packed, so he didn’t have anything to distract himself with. Your heartbroken expression haunted his dreams and made it very hard to sleep. He twisted and turned until he heard the morning alarm. After a quick shower, he put on his uniform and proceeded to the docks.  

It was nearly 7 a.m. and the dock was overflowing with people. The soldiers waved to their families and they waved back. He saw Steve nearly at the front; his friend looked almost trampled by the crowd but it didn’t seem like he minded. Bucky looked around, trying to find those of his friends that stayed behind. He suddenly saw a woman near one of the alleys. She looked familiar, but Bucky couldn’t place her. There was something about the way she was looking at him. There was sadness in her expression, just like most of the people there, but there was something else too, and before Bucky could figure out what it was she was gone. He tried to find her again, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Sergeant Barnes, everything alright?” The soldier next to him looked worried.

“What? Oh, yeah.” Smiling widely, as is nothing had happened, Bucky went back to waving and laughing.

Berlin was colder than he expected. His parka turned out to not be enough for the severe cold of Germany. He regretted not listening to you when you told him to take a bigger coat and warmer earmuffs. Training had prepared him for a lot of things, but the emptiness he felt wasn’t one of them. You invaded every single one of his thoughts.  

Bucky even brought your picture with him. He brought it as a promise that he would come back to you after the war. There was so much he wanted to tell you, but he knew that it would only be salt in the wound for you. He wrote dozens of letters, but never sent them. He missed you so much. Your smile, your laugh, the way your hair bounced when you walked, the little sound you made when you took the first spoonful of ice cream, even the way you blushed every time he teased you. He couldn’t get you out of his mind.

Weeks later, his battalion was called up to infiltrate and evacuate a secret underground scientific facility belonging to none other than Hitler himself, Bucky didn’t hesitate to answer the call. What they weren’t counting on was that the enemy had a well thought out ambush attack, and when Bucky got caught, he knew he was probably not going to make it out alive. His squadron was kept in a dungeon; they were starved for days on end. One by one, they were taken away. From the screams heard from far away, Bucky guessed that his men were being tortured for information. At some point, they grabbed him. He tried to fight but a prickling sensation at the side of his neck made his whole body go limp.

When he came to, he was strapped to a table. The cold metal nipping at his skin was the only thing reminding him that he was still alive. That he might still make it out, back home, back to you. What they did to him was worse than torture. The only thing they kept asking him was “how are you feeling now?”, sticking needles here and there. It didn’t seem like there was any proper purpose to what they were doing.  

Bucky had lost track of time. Waking up for what seemed like the 80th time, he felt a metallic flavor in his mouth. His ears rang, and his vision was blurry. Everything seemed out of tune. He thought he had finally died. That is, until a familiar voice rang in his ears. A voice he thought he’d never hear again.

“Bucky?!” The voice came from a large looking man. It sounded a lot like his friend, but Steve was a lot smaller when Bucky left home.

“…Steve?” He looked around. Maybe Steve was behind the big looking guy.

“Colonel Phillips told me you died. He sent your death notification home.” In that moment, he felt his chest tighten in pain. He knew what Steve was trying to say.

“(Y/N). She thinks I’m dead now.” Bucky fought back the tears that started forming.  

He kept your information so that you could receive his things should he ever die. You’d receive all the letters he wrote, plus the Colonel’s notification. But he wasn’t dead.

The walk back to camp should have been exhausting, but with every mile they covered Bucky felt better. With the new Steve, to which Bucky got used to surprisingly quickly, leading the group of rescued soldiers it took a couple of days with barely any rest to find their way to the encampment. When the Colonel told all of them that they were going back home, Bucky’s heart swelled up in his chest. He was going to be able to go back to you, to tell you the truth. That is, if you haven’t moved on from him, if you haven’t found someone new. The Colonel, however, didn’t mention a pit stop at London to discuss everything we knew about the place they were kept, and the other facilities belonging to the enemy.

It didn’t take long before Steve made a plan to destroy all other facilities. The guy was foolish as he was stubborn. Knowing this, Bucky was not going to let him go alone. It might take him a little longer than he planned since he was rescued, but he was still going home. A group of the best was formed and they headed out to start knocking down enemy bases. One particular mission required finding the man that was in charge of the experiments  done on Bucky and his men. The man, Dr. Zola, would be on a train, on his way to one of the facilities that was still up and running.

It was supposed to be quick, no surprises. They should have taken precautions. But now, as Bucky hid between the wall of the train car and the boxes of ammunition, he saw his end nearer than he had hoped. Suddenly Steve opened the door of the car and pushed one of the boxes towards the shooter, and Bucky finally shot him dead. Out of nowhere a blast of blue shot through. Steve managed to block it with his shield, but he staggered backwards and dropped it. The shot was strong enough to blast the side of the train car. By the looks of it, the tracks were elevated, but Bucky had no time to react. He saw a man with a strange armor pointing his weapon at Steve. He made for the shield, covered himself and started shooting at the robot man.  

Flying. No, falling. He was falling. It felt like flying.  

_“Bucky, please, hold on.”_

_“No, Steve listen, please, take care of her. Promise me you’ll take care of her.”_

_“Stop talking like that, just give me your hand!!”_

_“I’m not going to make it! You’re too far, just promise!!”_

_“Fine! I promise, but please, try and reach!! NO, BUCKY!! BUCKY!!”_

They say your life flashes before your eyes in the face of certain death. No one ever told Bucky that one person could be his whole life. You were every single thought he had before hitting the ground. It was a long way down, yet it felt like no time at all had passed. Every single memory he had with you played in his mind, even the ones he thought he forgot. Dreams that would never come true. Coming home, your wedding, kids running around a house with a white picket fence. The life that should have been, but would never be. The life he always wanted to give you.  

Tears fell from his eyes as he made peace with his end; maybe he would be able to watch over you. Maybe he would be able to see you carry on with your life, not letting his death be the end of you. Helping fate pick a good man to get you through every bit of pain he had caused you, watch you grow old together, happy, with the family he would never give you. Maybe after death, he’d make up for breaking your heart not once, but twice.


End file.
